Viewer Report Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Play It! (Walt Disney World) by Chris Martin

Hi Everyone!

Being a massive Millionaire fan, I devoted a 3 day vacation to the 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Play It!' attraction at MGM. After speaking with the staff and becoming friends with most of them, I was able to learn some technical information about the set and operations while I was watching some of the shows. Also included in this report, I will be providing information about some of the contestants I saw, their questions, wins/losses etc, and my time in the hot seat.

A hardcore Millionaire fan may realize upon entering the studio that some things are not exactly correct. While the most part everything is replicated well, certain lights are out of place/do not exist on the real show. For example, there are some lights in the middle of the contestant over-hang lights that have a "spiriling" effect over the hot seat and host seat. While you may have seen something like this during the Kevin Smith Million Dollar Win sequence (because he had a hard time walking and the producers wanted to focus on his seat), the Play It!'s light covered the whole section where the contestant sits with a tinted blue effect. The Play It! attraction also is mis-qued on certain light effects throughout the show.

"Shattered" light effects sweep the audience throughout the show, when they should be sweeping the stage is a good example. The stage floor bar lights (that connect to the arch entrances) couldn't shut off if you paid them to - even during the million point question. Strobe lights are only used during a million point win sequence, and not when they play the "times up" tune. s you can see, they could very well improve on some of the lighting, but for the most part things are just right in the studio.

Sounds on the other hand are a different story. I spotted a plathora of sound queue errors throughout the show. For instance; when a contestant answers questions 100-500 points correctly, you will not hear the "correct answer" sound, but the "Who was correct?" sound played when Fastest Finger results are being displayed. Should the contestant miss one of the first five questions, you will hear the 2,000 point lose sound.

It is important to know that if you do not pay close attention to the music on the real show, you might not understand this next part. At first thought, you may think that the background music stays the same for each question, when in fact it does not. If you listen closely, the "Let's Play", "Background Music", "Final Answer" and "Correct" or "Lose" sounds get a bit higher pitched each time per 5 question set (2,000-32,000 / 64,000-500,000 / 1 Million has it's own queues)

Once a contestant has correctly answered the 1,000 point question, things get really bad as far as sounds. The question "Let's Play" lights-down sounds are one question in advance, (ie. hearing the 4,000 point queue on the 2,000 point question) and the background music is also a question in advance (ie. 4,000 music on 2,000 question.) While the "Final Answer" and "Correct Answer" sounds are used correctly, this whole sequence starts bigger problems especially around the 32,000 point mark.

Once the contestant reaches the 32,000 question, you will hear the 64,000 'Lights Down' sound, along with the 64,000 background music, but the 32,000 Final Answer and Correct/Lose sound. Sound confusing? It should. If you have been following, you will realize that since the music queues are one question ahead of what they should be, there will eventually be a bigger problem if the contestant continue to correctly answer questions, namely on the 500,000 point & 1,000,000 point questions.

Both the 500k and 1 Million point questions will each have the exact same 'Lights Down' and background music (1 Million). Disney didn't really anticipate many people getting this far, as their questions are very difficult, so they think no one will notice.. (guees I showed them)! Finally, the 1 Million Correct/Lose sounds are used correctly.

One would ask why these sound queues are a question in advance? The answer is simple. If you've heard the "lets play" sound on the 100 and 2,000 point questions, you'll notice they are slightly different and more "messy" than all the others. Disney didn't want to use that sound as much, so they just got rid of it on the 2,000 point question - which started this whole reaction. Now that you've heard all the technical screw ups , I will tell about my experience watching, and playing the show!

In total, I attended about 17-20 shows during my trip, and have to point out my three favorites. The first one was with a man who was recently divorced, so he was rather upset with the female gender in general. His first question stated "If you are married to a woman, she is known as your what?" Now, any normal human being would say "Wife!" Well, he made a comment that did more damage than he may have wanted it to. He states (leaning into microphone closely)

"I don't see 'Slave' as an answer, so I'm going to pick Wife. Final."

He thought he was a big hot shot and that he was the best person in the world. Sorry buddy, but Karma play's fair. What goes around comes around. Just wait. Of course he kept answering his questions correctly, and the audience just got more and more upset each time. He was so happy that he was probably going to win the Four Day Cruise grand prize.

Sure enough, he got to the Million point question - and man the person feeding these questions must have been a woman who heard his remark. "The most recent species of bug discovered over 60 years ago was found in what African Country?" Audience is in complete silence, watching his 55 second timer tick down. With five seconds left, he looks up, and answers. "B. Final Answer." The Final answer queue and drumroll were the most nerve racking 10 seconds we've had experienced. Complete silence; his eyes glaring at the host who had his poker face on, reading from his screen.. Then the words the entire audeince was loveingly waiting to hear.

"He says it's his final answer. John.. It's not the right one."

The absolute mental scar-leaving evil amplified 1,000,000 point Lose sound was music to our ears (Listen to it here). While the audeince was somewhat upset, happiness filled the room as the lights came back on and he left the stage to claim his 32,000 pin collection and polo shirt.

My second favorite show would be when a 17 year old guy answered his way into the hot seat a few shows later. His first five questions he went through like a hot knife through butter. That's when he began "cheating".. From 2,000-32,000 he would say an answer he believed to be correct, but waiting on the audeince to respond with gasps or claps before he said final answer.

The host quickly picked up on this and asked the audience to remain silent (shyeah right.) Somehow by himself he made it to the 500,000 point question asking who a golfer married a few years back. Luckily his "Phone a Complete Stranger" was a big golf fan and helped him through the question. Then, it was time for his one million point question. The room darkened, 55 seconds were placed on the clock, the audience drew silent, and the ominous sound of nothing but heart beats filled the room as his question came on the screen.

"Elenor of Aquaintis married whom, after the death of King Louis IV?" He pondered the question for about 20 seconds or so, and told the host he didn't know, but thought that Elenor was early in history.. He looked again at his choices of Henry II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Louis V. With about ten seconds left, he took a deep breath and answered, "Henry II, Final." Again, silence filled the room. His answer lit, the final answer queue sounded, and the suspense drum roll began. The host looked at him, then at her monitor, and back at him - silent for a few seconds.

Then, everyone leaned forward as she began to speak.. "Oh Jason.. Jason Jason.. You're going on a CRUISE!".

The contestant's eyes grew larger than humanly possible as the lights came back on, the audience screaming at the top of their lungs, and strobe lights flashing. Once he regained the use of his legs after about 2 seconds, he got up, picked up the host, and screamed as the Million Point Win music was playing and streamers of blue, purple, and yellow flew onto the set from both side archways.

Needless to say once the show was dismissed, I gathered as many streamers as I could get that were still on the ground (as a token of my vist )

My third and final show that I loved so much. My friend and I walked in, sat down, and realized we should have picked seats next to someone who actually speaks fluent english. I don't know what that guy next to me was trying to say, but it was german.. Whatever too late now..

The show started and the host came out with her usual doo-da "Who wants to be a millionaire? It seems no matter where you go, it's always the same! Everybody!" bit that I had heard so many times before. (You would think they could do a little improv.. but no..) This time we had a new host named Kathy. The staff informed us later that she had only been with the show for about a week now. Frankly the woman scared me.. She acted like she sniffs glue.. But nice nonetheless..

After she finally stopped talking, we got around to the fastest finger question. Since you're battling against 649 other people, there is no time to read the question, or choices to that matter. Without knowing what I was doing, I just picked the 4 answers in a random order when my keypad lit up.

After the fastest finger challenge, she announced it was time to look at the top twn scores. My friend Karen who was with me the entire time was thrilled that she was in 3rd place on the board! After congratulating her, I looked back up and they had just shown that seat 237 was the winner. After about a mili-second of thought, I remember Karen was in 3rd place, and she was in seat 238, and the german guy next to me was in 236....uh oh.. Sure enough in 0.58 seconds, I had picked the correct order. I was rushed down to the stage by an older gentleman wearing all black, who sat me in the hotseat, asked my name, where I was from, etc etc. He then proceeded to make it extremely clear to me that I shouldn't touch the microphone in front of me under any circumstances.... you don't wanna know..

"Everyone welcome Chris from Tennessee!" "Yaaaaaay clap clap clap" "So Chris, are you having fun at the parks?" "Yes, its been fun so far! I've enjoyed the show and riding tower of te..." "That's great Chris! Well, you know how to play the game, you are just 15 questions..." yadda yadda bork bork bork..

I was too busy trying not to look at her or the audience or the camera's for that matter, so I just glanced at the screen in front of me. Needless to say, they spent more time making it look pretty on the big screens than they did on the hot seat screen.. THe artwork was terrible, the clock that showed how much time I had left looked like a bunch of lego blocks, and the lifeline selections looked like a 4 year old drew them..

"Chris I just threw a lot of stuff at you, did you catch it all?" "huh wha?" "Who want's to be a Millionare? Let's Play!" "Wai.." "Ok Chris for 100 points!"

At this point I had given up trying to actually speak without her interrupting me, so I just answered the questions. The only few I remember from the first 5 were "Entries in the dictonary are arranged how?" and "..played what instrument"? I was much too nervous to actually try to remember the questions.

After I won the 1,000 I was a little more calm and could start being myself again. This time when she asked me a question, she didn't interrupt me! (Shocking!) After playing some more, I answered the 2,000 point question, then had a bit of trouble on 4,000.. "Cass Elliott was a member of what band?" That was a little before my time and I had never paid attention to her (the woman died choking on a ham sandwich for crying out loud) so I just guessed...wrong..

I was slightly happy to get out of there since it was all spur of the moment and I was uncomfortable. Next thing I knew I was being congratulated and being sent to a back room to provide my mailing information and to sign an agreement saying I cannot play again for 30 days.

I was then given my 100-1,000 point pins, and hat and sent along my way. I am scheduled to go back this September, and this time I plan on being more comfortable with my questions. Overall it was a great experience! The staff was friendly, the shows were great, and I had a great time! I would rate this attraction a 9/10 at disney - a must see for any millionaire fan!

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Conducted 9/10/03